About my adventures with computers, digital photography, motorcycling, plus family and friends.

Sunday, April 8, 2007

New Printer - HP D7160

Finally got fed up with the quality of prints from my older color printer, a Canon S750. It produced acceptable results on some kinds of paper and poor results on others. Mostly, it produced prints with an overall bluish cast and poor colors.

My new printer is an HP Photosmart D7160. I have only had a limited amount of time to play with it, but it seems to be hugely better.

I was able to get it for only $149.95 CDA, plus the usual gov't taxes of course ... . Staples did a price match with Best Buy. Since I had consumed time from two of their staff doing a trial print from a memory stick, I thought I should buy it from them.

They had only one printer on display that was powered up and had ink installed. It was the model I eventually bought, but at the time I did the test prints in the store, I really did think I would be buying the Epson printer beside it. Since I could not do a side-byside trial, I did do a lot of web searching for reviews and the like. Several postings by owners convinced me the Epson consumed an inordinate amount of ink. At least one owner of the HP indicated, or seemed to indicate, the HP did use a fair amount of ink, but not excessive.

For my first trials, my wife chose a recent shot of my grandaughter. I printed it on HP Everyday paper, Staples glossy, and HP Advanced. She could see the difference between each clearly and said the HP Advanced was easily the best. I fully agreed, although after 39 years of marriage, I seldom do otherwise ... .

My wife asked if the HP Advanced paper was a lot more expensive, and I said I assumed it was but would check. I did so the next day, and once again, Staples was kind to me. Imagine, just when I needed it, they had the paper on sale - buy one, get one free!. So, I bought 200 sheets of 4x6 and 24 sheets of 8x10 for about $35.

So, I have lots of paper now, older and newer, and lots of testing to do.

I'll try to figure out the printer's color management / color profile arrangements - a rant or two likely coming to this blog, based on a quick look at the printer's option setting pages.